Let me say it up front. I dislike Virat Kohli. I dislike the way he plays his cricket, his attitude on the field, his incessant proclivity towards abuse, his win-at-all-costs mentality. At the same time I am keenly aware of his prodigious talent. Many a U-19 cricketer has shone at the level before fading away into obscure Ranji oblivion- Mithun Manhas, RS Ricky, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Amol Mazumdar- the list is endless. Kohli belongs to the rare breed of those U-19 players who have seamlessly transitioned to the senior squad almost immediately. Not only did he merely make the senior squad, at the age of 23, he is already a World Cup champion having played a crucial role in India’s victory. Most notably in the final, with India tottering at 31-2 and ghastly memories of the semi-final against Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens in 1996 surreptitiously creeping back, Kohli played a mature innings of 35 steadying the Indian ship, giving us all belief that the target could yet be achieved. Kohli’s natural talent combined with his equally natural vituperations makes him a fascinating character, one, who for me, best captures the contradictions at the heart of new and emerging India, which have played out in our national politics, like never before, in 2011.

A strong sense of self-belief is Kohli’s finest attribute. Whether in a World Cup final or in seaming conditions in England, Kohli’s virat self belief, justifiably or otherwise, never lets up. It is the same self-belief that has seen a more activist, vociferous and determined youth take to the streets in protest against corrupt politicians, eve-teasing murderers, honour killers or atrocities by the Indian army in Kashmir. A sense of injustice and wrong has for long prevailed amongst Indian youth. However in the last year, this sense of injustice has been coupled with the unprecedented gumption, to go out there, act on one’s beliefs and believe that the result is possible. New India has thus reaffirmed Swami Vivekananda’s clarion call to the youth of India to “Arise, awake and stop not, until the goal is reached.” Anna Hazare’s campaign, dismissed inexplicably by armchair intellectuals, as a “middle-class facebook activism”, for all its faults was the beneficiary of such an attitude amongst India’s youth who came out in droves to support it. And though a “strong and effective Lokpal” could not be passed this session, (and just as well) it forced Parliament to discuss the issue openly, thereby making our elected representatives accountable like never before.

Unfortunately, the flip side of this self-belief is an uncritical and almost irrebuttable belief of one’s rightness and the consequent wrongness of others. In a seemingly inconsequential incident on Day 3 of the Boxing Day Test, Kohli fielding in the deep unnecessarily attempted an ambitious and meaningless direct hit. No one was at the stumps and Ravichandran Ashwin backing up was nowhere close to preventing the overthrow. Of course, that made little difference to Kohli, who convinced he was not in the wrong, spewed some choice expletives in Ashwin’s direction. Similarly, when he was adjudged LbW for a golden duck in the second innings, he stood around and glared at the umpire as if he had just announced a call for genocide and Kohli was about to become its first victim. Needless to say, he couldn’t be caught more plumb in front.

Now conviction in one’s view is no bad thing but conviction which becomes dogmatic to not countenance criticism or allow for introspection is deeply problematic. Emerging India suffers largely from a similar malaise. The classic example of this is a foundational plinth on which emerging India is built: The 24*7 news media. In a year in which the role of the media has been scrutinised like never before, their coverage of the recent Lokpal debate in Parliament, was testimony to how uncritical and unquestioning the fourth pillar of our democracy has become. All channels were quick to claim that what transpired in Parliament was the “murder of democracy”; it was “murder at midnight” and a “travesty of representative government.” They also uniformly claimed credit for being “the first” to predict that such an “orchestrated chaos” would ensue. What was so murderous about what happened in Parliament? Is the government not entitled to defer the passage of a bill to the next session if a better debate could be facilitated? And can the discretion of the Vice-President of India so blithely be questioned by a few news anchors, without proof or special knowledge? Now it well may be that the chaos was orchestrated by the government, but surely the entire sequence of events was more complex than a banal headline. To claim, without evidence that can be brought to bear publicly, is journalism of the worst kind; of a kind that revels in the power of shaping public opinion without having to reflect even momentarily about the gossip, hearsay and rumours which shape such opinions.

Kohli undoubtedly has the spunk to take on the world and beat it. Cricket isn’t just a game, it’s a battle which has to be won. Much like India in 2011, which dared to take on the world on the nuclear liability bill, adopted an increasingly aggressive stance regarding permanent membership of the UN Security Council, became an independent voice in climate change negotiations, Kohli stridently blazes his willow away to glory, irrespective of the nationality of the opposition. No longer do we cower in front of sledge-happy Aussie quicks, super-fast South African ones or Pakistanis keen for restoring their national pride on the cricket ground- we take them on and quite often win.

But yet for some reason, I, despite my obvious delight in seeing India win in cricket and prosper everywhere, don’t feel happy in the same way. I still pine for elements of the older India; an India of Javagal Srinath or Anil Kumble, where despite losing more often than winning, there was an innocence to the way we played our cricket and led our lives. When winning and results didn’t matter very much but doing the right thing did. When hundred hundreds was a wonderful statistic to achieve and not a daily national obsession, when the Beatles sat easily with Bharatanatyam and Treasure Island, one of Calcutta’s first malls with New Market, one of its oldest, when life was altogether more simple and our identity more entrenched.

In no way at all am I advocating a return to an older, less economically prosperous, but more socially secure India. Not only is it not possible, but it also undesirable. What I would like to see is a coming together of Kohli’s India and Srinath’s India; where winning matters, but winning by being playing the game in the spirit of the game matters more, where being important in world politics matters, but having an independent mind matters more, where organising a protest movement matters, but ensuring that the atmosphere is not so vitiated that no debate and fruitful negotiation is possible matters more. And where we continue to remember that while we must make every effort to become a superpower in the 21^st century, our current and most pressing concern must be to ensure that every child in the country from the day she is born, can get three square meals a day. That, I hope, is what we can go some way towards achieving in 2012.

A very happy and prosperous new year to everyone!

Representative democracy seems to have reached its tipping point in countries that have long been lauded for their democratic models. The Congress is dead-locked in the US, as political ideologies reach a bipartisanship that is seemingly irreconcilable. When even the so-called ‘super’ committee comprised of only 12 individuals can’t seem to agree, the Senate’s failure to pass legislation on anything from climate change to rising the debt-ceiling doesn’t seem to be too outrageous in comparison. The only thing that seems to unite Congress is worrying about China’s growing power and currency manipulation.

The EU, on the other hand, has almost stopped trying to sell the idea of democracy to its voters, as five of its governments have been felled over the current debt crisis. Brussels has openly installed technocrats in Italy and Greece that have been received fairly warmly by the public, who seem to think that any form of decision-making is better than the political dithering seen over the past few years. Further treaty changes will force countries to compromise their sovereignty and agree to budgetary control and supervision by external independent bodies.

In the East, the winter session of the Indian Parliament has literally grinded to a stand-still as both the opposition and members of Singh’s (ironically a technocrat himself in the world’s largest democracy) own party cause an uproar over Singh’s weak attempt to open up the Indian retail sector to FDI. India is seized by political stalemate even as mass protests against corruption rock the country as shocking government scams come to light. The strong opposition to the usual farce of Russian elections has taken Kremlin by surprise. Pro-democracy protests in Moscow have led to the first real political crisis Putin has had to face. If the next election is open to real competition, he may be the first Russian President to ever have to take part in a televised debate.

The world continues to deal with the fall-out of two unprecedented crises in 2008 and 2011 as the repercussions continue to ripple through the global economy.  On the other hand, international climate change talks continue to be a massive disappointment as the Kyoto protocol is in danger of dying without any legally binding agreements in place. As an impending global recession beckons, unemployment numbers rise ever higher even as anger at increasing inequality reaches climax. Mass uprisings extending from the U.S. to the Middle East have sprung up in the past year as the public fights for parity and more transparent governance at a pivotal time. How longer do we have before these global movements turn violent?

China seems to be the linchpin of the global economy, as it continues to invest heavily in infrastructure and clean energy and grow at a phenomenal rate It is one of the few places in the world where the government seems to actually be able to take decisions- in an undemocratic way, of course. No matter how much the West moans worries about its rapid progress and impending threat, it is the one bright spot in the market. This unexpected economic success of undemocratic policy-making calls our own models of governance into question.

However, it isn’t that democracy has failed; it is simply that it has de-evolved; our systems of governance have grown bloated, corrupt and decidedly undemocratic. Crony capitalism and the revolving door between the banks and government have never been highlighted so boldly as by the 2008 crisis and the OWS protests. If we are forced to pay for others mistakes, and accept losses for risks we didn’t take as others reap the returns, can we claim to follow a democratic model of governance?

The OWS movement has been heavily criticized for failing to politicize in a more traditional form, but it has the right idea. We cannot change the heavily inefficient political system from within; there are too many well set-up barriers to entry that include resources and time.  But we don’t need to work within the system. Whether the politicians like it or not, the internet is a democratizing force. Social networking and media has revolutionized the way we function, and the realm of possibilities of our actions. People are easier to connect; protests and actions are easier to organize. For instance, in Russia, the government has traditionally relied on state-controlled TV to set the political agenda; but independent news sources have penetrated Russia through the internet and encouraged political awareness. A video of a youth slapping one of India’s most famously corrupt Ministers went viral in a day with thousands of Indians lauding his actions on Facebook and Twitter. The Egyptian government made the mistake of attempting to cut off the internet when the rising against Mubarak first erupted- where is Mubarak now? For an example closer to home, look no further than this site- it would have impossible for our generation to voice our political opinions and be taken seriously just ten years ago.

We’re in the midst of a dramatic revolution, as the world grows flatter. The 1% is powerful because we choose them to be. It is time we recognized the clout of the 99%. The Move Your Money project is a great illustration of this as it encourages the public to shift their funds from Wall Street’s major banks to local ones, taking the power away from the bankers. Additionally, an increasing number of people are organizing to take urgent climate change action into their own hands, as politicians continue to drag their feet. As funding from banks dries up, renewable energy companies have begun to raise money through groupfunding using social networks.

The two crises have highlighted that our economic and political systems are broken; we must adapt to survive. We can and are creating new models of governance.

So what does it take to be a successful Indian politician? Three key qualities are absolutely essential—mass appeal, the ability to handle pressure and be able to connect with a wide range of people across social strata. Top-level national cricketers have all these qualities in abundance:

Mass Appeal:

Most national cricketers who have played for any length of time would command a respectable mass appeal. Perhaps they may not all be unanimously revered like Sachin Tendulkar, but it would be fair to assume that service to Indian cricket is a pretty safe way to work one’s way into the public consciousness.  That’s an election result neatly in the bag.

See how just one knock of 87 got this dude a whole generation of fans. Had he been wiser he would not have continued playing for Uttar Pradesh in dusty hinterland cricket grounds but could have been sashaying down the corridors of power in the country, something of course he can’t do with much regularity on a cricket pitch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0_m_v-omnM

Ability to handle pressure

For an Indian cricketer, it’s all about the pressure. Whether home or away, with a massive contingent of fans loudly and raucously cheering him on, and millions more glued to their television sets, nerves are bound to jangle. Almost every moment is a make-or-break one. Hit and you’re famous; miss and you’re a goner.

Sample this for pressure: A tail-ender coming out to bat against Pakistan in Karachi, it doesn’t get bigger than this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P24X6cZbHmg

If after this, as a politician, your constituents want you to build a road, three contractors are falling head over heels to get the contract to build the road and your party does not want you to build the road but instead focus on enriching the party coffers, surely the pressure seems minuscule in comparison?

The Connect:

For a politician, unless you’re smart and in the Rajya Sabha like many of our current cabinet ministers are, it’s all about connecting with people. Especially in this modern day and age, it’s imperative for most politicians to connect with the farmer, the grocer as well as the tycoon and public relations manager. And cricketers already have a headstart in this process: because if there’s one thing that connects Indians better than State Bank of India proclaims to do , it’s cricketers.

Sachin Tendulkar

I have little doubt that cricketers can fit into politics more seamlessly than most others. Given this, I’m surprised most former Indian cricketers end up either doing bad commentary, attempt to coach teams, or just retire into oblivion. Come on guys, you’ve served the nation handsomely as cricketers, and here’s another golden opportunity to put on the whites again. The white kurta-pyajama for Parliament this time!

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/parliaments-missing-sons/feed 9 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/mediapopularculture/what-raktha-charitra-taught-me-about-violence http://www.criticaltwenties.in/mediapopularculture/what-raktha-charitra-taught-me-about-violence#comments Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:22:39 +0000 Alok http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=1541 I must confess that I’m not exactly a fan of Ram Gopal Verma. The best response his films usually generate with me is an indifferent “meh”. Raktha Charitra Part I hasn’t changed my opinion of him or his other films.

But I am anything but indifferent to Raktha Charitra, and for some reason have found myself thinking about what this bloody biopic really means for the polity, more so since the events (save for a few exceptions) are broadly true.

Make no mistake; Raktha Charitra is not just a movie with a story that has a neat beginning and a neat end. One gets the sense that Paritala Ravi (or Pratap Ravi in the movie) was someone who went through a systematic process but understood the process better than others. I’ll sort of try and explain what I mean by this in this post.

WARNING:***Spoilers ahead***

From the start, RGV makes it very clear that violence is a way of life in “Anandpur” (thinly disguised Rayalseema). What I have found out from friends and read about Rayalseema does nothing to dispel this notion. This is not violence-as-a-way-of-life in the way of say, Somalia, or Kashmir in the 1990s. Violence here is both lawful and unlawful and, most importantly, normal. Normal, not in the sense of the usual, frequent or ordinary, but in the sense of being the norm. Violence is an expected and accepted response to wrongs and the response to violence can only be violence.

RGV does a great job of conveying this in Raktha Charitra. Two instances stand out. Somewhere, in the second half of the movie, we are told of the story of Babu Qadri whose sister is brutally kidnapped and raped by the main antagonist, Bukka Reddy, causing her to commit suicide. When Babu protests, he is taken to Bukka Reddy who casually tells him that he’ll rape anyone he likes, and goes on to systematically break Babu Qadri’s legs with the butt of a rifle. At the same time as he’s meting out his horrific “punishment” on Babu Quadri, Bukka’s aunt walks past the scene, batting not a single eyelid, casually asks Bukka if he wants to join her on a visit to the temple, and accepts his negative response with less than a shrug of the shoulders. Bukka’s behaviour is not even shocking to her.

At another time, Pratap Ravi is hatching the plot to kill Bukka Reddy with his associates over lunch, while being served by his mother and his wife. As far as his mother and wife are concerned, this is not different from any political, personal or business meeting that Pratap may conduct over lunch. There’s no moralistic objection to violence or revenge. As far as they are concerned, Bukka Reddy’s violence is to be met only with violence, and that is perfectly acceptable.

The violence-as-the-norm view, I suppose, is not a unique point of view that RGV is peddling, or even the context in which he is putting it in (the Telugu film industry thrives and survives on such faction violence), but Raktha Charitra asks a deeper question, namely, is violence all there is, but is there something more? This is especially so, if we compare the characters of Bukka Reddy and Pratap Ravi.

From the start, there seems to be little difference between the two, as far as methods go, and arguably, their ultimate aims go. Both use violence publicly and freely to meet their goals, i.e., the destruction of the other and the gaining of power. The difference however, is seen in their response to Shivaji Rao (Shatrughan Sinha brilliantly channelling NT Rama Rao’s charisma and eccentricity) during the elections. As far as Bukka is concerned, violence is the only way to establish supremacy and seeing a new threat, he attacks him as well, believing that this will dissuade Shivaji Rao from campaigning and challenging Bukka’s hold on the district. Pratap however, sees an opportunity for an ally. More importantly, Pratap recognizes that violence alone will not give him victory over Bukka (nor Bukka over Pratap) and to break the deadlock, he needs to compromise and enter politics on Shivaji Rao’s side.

As far as Bukka is concerned, violence is politics by other means, but Pratap recognizes the difference. As far as Bukka is concerned, fear is the only thing that drives people, but Pratap knows that fear can be trumped by something else; respect. This is also evident in their leadership styles. Bukka’s men obey him because they fear him; Pratap’s because they respect him. Without the ability to terrorize a population, Bukka suddenly seems vulnerable and defenceless, his brutal assassination only a formality for Pratap (or justice, in the case of Babu Qadri). Pratap, on the other hand, enjoys the respect of not only his peers, but his “constituency” as such, something he is schooled in by Shivaji Rao. This allows him to dictate terms to the biggest gang-lords of the city without the fear of repercussion.

Earning the respect of people involves quid pro quo, something that is not possible with fear alone. Pratap solves disputes, gets things done and generally does for his constituents what they want him to do for them. I won’t go so far as to suggest a Nitish Kumar – Lalu comparison, but at some level, Pratap and Nitish Kumar would understand each other. In effect, Pratap is trying to break out of the cycle of violence which perpetuates itself with more killings, revenge killings and revenge killings for revenge killings, and sees entry into politics as a way of doing this. Raktha Charitra Part 1 is essentially the rise of Paritala Ravi as he not only avenges his father’s and brother’s deaths, but also tries to rise above the cycle of violence.

Of course, earning respect later in life does not absolve one of responsibility for the sins committed early on, and Part 2 of Raktha Charitra (releasing this Friday, the 3rd of December) will probably track the fall of Pratap Ravi for this reason alone.

***Spoilers end***

So, what does this mean for our polity? I don’t claim to make a broad ranging argument but just a couple of thoughts I’d like to throw up for discussion:

1.Violence is nothing but a means to an end. Sometimes it is an apt tool, and sometimes it is not. It is as much true of counter-insurgency efforts in Chattisgarh as it is when dealing with Pakistan or Arundhati Roy. Perhaps, in some situations, to paraphrase Isaac Asimov’s saying, violence is the last resort of the fool, but it takes a wise man to figure that out. In this regard, Gandhi’s means-and-ends argument is as much about practicality as it is about morality.

2.It is reductionist to see politics and violence as being two sides of the same coin, i.e., violence is politics by other means. The interaction and interplay of the two is complex and often confusing, but that, by no means renders the two the one and the same. The two can co-exist and thrive in separate fields. For instance, what methods the Myanmarese junta use to control their population would be nothing but violence, but the methods they use to stay in power vis-a-vis each other is not the same. Perhaps the recent sham elections may indeed be an effort to overcome some limitations of the first, and allow the better use of the latter.

I know I’m only using the terms “violence” and “politics” loosely, so students of political science and … violence are requested to look beyond definitional difficulties while commenting.

Or you could just tell us you hated/loved the movie and why.

A little background first.

Appointment of the Chief Justice of India, unlike the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of India, is a very transparent process. The senior-most judge on the Bench is, by convention, appointed the Chief Justice of India. Senior-most here means the judge who has been judge at the Supreme Court for the longest. To take the most recent example, when Justice KG Balakrishnan retired in 2010, among the sitting judges of the Supreme Court of India, Justice SH Kapadia had served the longest on the Bench, i.e., about six and a half years from his appointment on 18.12.2003.

This convention itself dates back to the days of the Federal Court of India set up under the Government of India Act, 1935 and is one of those that continues because no one has found a better way. Or rather, the attempts to change the convention have been so controversial that no Government or Chief Justice of India has tried to by pass the same for reasons I’ll explain.

There have been three attempts to bypass the convention or “supersede” judges, where the ruling authority has sought to overlook the senior most judge of the Supreme Court in favour of someone else in appointing the Chief Justice of India. All three attempts have been hugely controversial for different reasons.

The first “supersession” was in 1943 when Justice Patrick Spens was appointed Chief Justice of India in preference to the senior-most judge on the Bench, Justice Srinivasa Varadachariar (then Acting Chief Justice). (It was alleged, and probably not without basis that one of the grounds of supersession was racial, as British judges and lawyers did not want an Indian as the Chief Justice of India. Justice Iyengar promptly retired adding fuel to the fire, that was only perhaps quenched when Justice Harilal J Kania was finally appointed Chief Justice of India, first on the Federal Court and then in the Supreme Court of India).

The second “supersession” involved three judges, the landmark judgement of the Supreme Court of India in Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala and the then Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Justice AN Ray was appointed CJI by the then Government overlooking the three seniormost judges of the Supreme Court, including Justice Sikri’s recommendation for the post, Justice JM Shelat. Justice Shelat, and the other two judges, Justices AN Grover and KS Hegde retired in protest.

The motivation of Mrs. Gandhi for this supersession wasn’t hard to find. In the midst of her war with the judiciary, when the Court had struck down key legislation for being unconstitutional, Mrs. Gandhi wanted to assert her supremacy (yes, her supremacy and not the Parliament’s supremacy) over the judiciary and Justice Ray was the one judge who had consistently found the Government’s arguments favourable in such landmark cases. As the former Attorney General of India, CK Daphtary caustically remarked, “The boy who wrote the best essay won the first prize.”

The third, and possibly most infamous supersession, happened during the height of the Emergency, when Mrs. Gandhi was less than appreciative of Justice HR Khanna’s brave dissent in the ADM Jabalpur case. Needless to say, Justice Khanna resigned upon finding that he had overlooked in favour of Justice MH Beg to be appointed the CJI.

It is in these circumstances that a majority of the Bar, Bench and the Government have favoured continuing the convention to avoid unpleasant memories of the above controversies. Whether or not the convention should continue is a different matter altogether, but this is the circumstance in which we find ourselves, and this is what must be remembered in this story (which, if you, the ADD-led youth of India haven’t already forgotten, is about the woman who almost became CJI).

With this convention in place, it is possible to predict, with total accuracy whether or not a given judge of the Supreme Court will become the CJI. All one needs to do is see if on the date of the retirement of the CJI, how many years the given judge has spent. E.g., when the present CJI retires, Justice Altamas Kabir will be the senior-most judge, and when he retires, Justice PS Sathasivam, and after him, Justice RM Lodha, Justice HL Dattu and Justice TS Thakur, in that order. (If rumour and gossip are to be believed, and the noted Supreme Court Senior Advocate, Mr. Rohinton Nariman is appointed judge of the Supreme Court this year, then he will be CJI after Justice Thakur)

In 2000, in the Golden Jubilee year of the Supreme Court of India, three judges were to be appointed to the Supreme Court of India, sworn in by the then CJI, Justice AS Anand. They were, Justice YK Sabharwal, Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Ruma Pal. The date of the swearing in was fixed on 29th of January and observers were quick to note, that barring any unfortunate catastrophe, Justices Ruma Pal and Sabharwal would have the same level of seniority in 2005 when Justice RC Lahoti retires as CJI. In such a case, convention demanded that the judge whose name was higher in the alphabetical order would be considered more senior and in such a case, Justice Ruma Pal would be CJI.

Justice Ruma Pal was (and is still) considered to be one of the finest judges in India and a great choice for elevation to the Supreme Court of India. Almost all lawyers who argued before her came away impressed by her clarity of thought and the speed with which she would grasp the issues at stake. Stern in the courtroom and incisive in her judgements, she commanded, not demanded, the respect of most of the advocates. One could do worse in appreciating her qualities than reading two of her best judgements in the Supreme Court; Pradeep Kumar Biswas v Indian Institute of Chemical Biology and BSNL v Union of India. The first woman Chief Justice of India would have been a great judge in her own right and not just a good woman judge.

Except that didn’t happen of course.

The day of swearing in was advanced by one day in the last minute to ensure that it coincided with the Golden Jubilee day of the Supreme Court of India, and somehow, Justice Ruma Pal did not get the message in time. Whereas Justices Raju and Justice Sabharwal were able to make it to Delhi in time for the swearing in ceremony in the morning, Justice Ruma Pal, based in Kolkata, was only able to make it to Delhi later, and sworn in on the afternoon. As a result, though sworn in on the same day, the fact that Justice Sabharwal was sworn in a few hours before her, meant that she wasn’t the seniormost judge and missed being Chief Justice of India by the narrowest of margins.

It is not exactly clear why Justice Ruma Pal did not receive the communication in time and though some attribute less than honest motives to the then CJI, there’s little to substantiate such rumours. While it wouldn’t have prevented Justice YK Sabharwal from being appointed CJI, it would have reduced his term by about half the length he actually served as CJI.

Since Justice Ruma Pal retired, no woman was elevated to the Supreme Court till Justice Gyan Sudha Misra was appointed in April 2010; a four year gap that does not reflect well on the Supreme Court Collegium. From the appointments so far, no woman is likely to be CJI before 2017 at least (and if rumours of Mr. Nariman’s elevation are correct, at least till 2022).

I don’t know if Justice Ruma Pal feels she “lost” something, but I’m sure that the Supreme Court as an institution did lose out by not having Justice Ruma Pal as the Chief Justice of India.

[Clarification: After I put out this post, it was pointed out to me by some that the delay in swearing in Justice Ruma Pal may not have been the only factor in breaking the "tie" of seniority between Justice Ruma Pal and Justice Sabharwal since Justice Sabharwal served on the Delhi High Court longer than Justice Ruma Pal served on the Calcutta High Court. I don't dispute this possibility but since seniority is counted from the time one has been sworn in, there was no need to "break the tie" at all.]

[ Edited also to correct a previous sentence which said "forenoon" instead of "afternoon". ] ]

The Congress has displayed some very astute political tightrope walking over the past few years. To the casual observer, it would appear that the grand old party of India, with its sage like prime minister, benevolent high priestess and army of clean-shaven young leaders represents the ‘clean’ face of new Indian politics.  Most scams and embarrassments have been associated with its allies – the 2G Spectrum Scam with A Raja of the DMK, the rotting grains in FCI godowns with Sharad Pawar of the NCP. The Congress has easily been able to project an image of having to live with murky allies due to political realities, while being above them.   A quick review of the UPA’s record, however, will show that the Congress has been complicit, or even instrumental, in a process of systematically destroying democratic institutions – a process which in the long run could have far greater ramifications for democracy and governance in India than individual acts of corruption that its allies have indulged in.

It started with the office of the President. Pratibha Patil’s main qualification for the job was her unquestioned loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family.  However, numerous reports of corruption and even complicity in murder against her and her family were hastily swept under the carpet. It is easy in the political world to dig out dirt against any one, and allegations cannot be taken as proof of guilt. However, the crux of the problem lay in the complete refusal by the Congress to engage with any objections against the proposed candidate. The sanctity of the office of the President suffered as a result.

The pattern has been repeated with alarming regularity. The appointment of Navin Chawla as the Chief Election Commissioner despite allegations of partisanship and objections from the highly respected incumbent, smacked of complete disregard for the importance of the office. Similarly, last week the Congress pressed on with (and indeed justified), the appointment of PJ Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner despite his possible involvement in the palm oil scam in Kerala, and association with the 2G Spectrum scam.  The result was a complete mockery of the bipartisan process of appointment, with objections from Sushma Swaraj of the BJP being rubbished by the Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari on prime time television.  Examples abound – take the continued support to Kalmadi in the face of widespread corruption and mismanagement of the Commonwealth Games, or the interference by the Finance Ministry against all precedent in the extension of the Deputy RBI Governor’s term of office.  Nothing has been done to remedy the CBI’s reputation of being a stooge of the Congress either – in fact, the party appears to be reveling in the image.

The importance of the independence of bipartisan institutions cannot be overstated. To take just a single instance, the Election Commission is among the few bodies in the country which has the confidence of the public as being a democratic institution beyond reproach. Past chiefs have shown themselves to be equal to the task of taking on political heavyweights and goons to ensure that elections in India are free and fair.  It is the existence of institutions such as these that have kept India from teetering into chaos unlike other fledgling democracies such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and a multitude of African countries.  Just one stint by a politically partisan appointee could effectively destroy the reputation that the institution has created for itself against numerous odds.

It is unfortunate that these incidents do not carry the eyeball grabbing power of a grisly 1000 crore scam. The opposition has also shown incapacity to run with the theme and give it the necessary political traction. Murmurs of dissent by the BJP can be heard every so often, but no concerted attack has emerged.

The solution can and must be found through soul searching within the Congress itself. After the struggles of the nineties, the Congress is a party that seemed to have finally come to its own. It has the political clout and growing mass popularity to be in a position to really transform the fundamentals of governance in the country.  Appointment of loyalists at the helm of every institution designed to function as a counterweight to government power, perhaps stems from a deep seated insecurity within the party.  I believe that this insecurity is misplaced. By delivering on the promises of good governance that brought the party to power, the Congress can cement gains already made.  This makes strategic sense as well – independent institutions can help to keep allies in check without eroding the goodwill of the Congress with these parties.

Most importantly, for a party whose fate has been closely bound with the fortunes of the country since its birth, history’s judgment must carry some weight. The country is at a crossroads of sorts, and the Congress, once again, has the steer. Meddling with democratic institutions that could help India to realize its ambition of becoming a healthy, vibrant democracy will do neither the party, nor the country any favours.

Do not listen to music while studying. Don’t turn on the computer while you do your homework. No watching TV while eating. How often have we heard our parents tell us that we should stop doing many things at a time? The new technologies have made it more possible to do more and more things simultaneously. Is that good or bad?

An interesting post on MindHacks argued against Maggie Jackson‘s recent book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Maggie claims that with the development of many new technologies that enable us to multi-task, we are getting more stressed and less creative. Vaughan Bell on MindHacks says that the argument is short-sighted and that even before the digital-age we were people who multi-tasked. At least now we have the ability of turning off the devices and thus, turn off the interruptions.

I like some of Vaughan’s argument. He starts by giving example of a woman from a poor neighbourhood who needs to tend to her four children, maintain the house (shopping, cleaning) and take care of a business she runs from the household. The majority of the people in the world who are still not part of the digital age are in one way or the other in that woman’s situation. And thus, saying that multi-tasking is a relatively new thing is not done with.

But he misses to counter some important points from Maggie’s argument. According, to Vaughan it’s easy to see that women may have gotten their brains wired to multi-task but exactly the opposite  can then be assumed to be true for men. Men were primarily, hunters and/or gatherers, they had a single objective: feed the family. Thus, they must have got their brains wired to focus on a single task, no?

I’d like to refute an argument which Maggie makes:

When you’re scattered and diffuse, you’re less creative. When your times of reflection are always punctured, it’s hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking.

Creativity is the capacity to put together two or more ideas (or things) in a way that no one has before. In that respect, in the digital age I’d say that we have more opportunities to be creative but at the same time, because the same resources are available to a greater audience we have to think much harder and more often about  a ‘new way’. That may translate into more time devoted to thinking about the problem but there it doesn’t mean that that time must be all together. I can think of many instances where punctuated thought has brought me more ideas than hours of contemplation.

Today science has come to a point where one needs to be able to think about many things (and use the many resources/tools) at a time to be able to solve the highly complex (and inter-disciplinary) problems. In this case, I’d say that the better we may get at multi-tasking (with or without the help of the new technology) the better it may be for the scientists.

Even then, I have to agree to a few arguments that Maggie makes:

We are programmed to be interrupted. We get an adrenalin jolt when orienting to new stimuli: Our body actually rewards us for paying attention to the new. So in this very fast-paced world, it’s easy and tempting to always react to the new thing. But when we live in a reactive way, we minimize our capacity to pursue goals.

That makes sense. Yes, the multi-tasking on the internet (email, facebook, twitter) might be reducing our capacity to pursue goals. I think we should realise this in our browsing habits and avoid those distractions. But  other than those distractions, that very habit of multi-tasking can prove to be a boon for many researchers, writers, readers or anyone who needs to be able to deal with a lot of data (opinions, facts, ideas) that keeps coming their way during their browsing experience.

Maggie’s comment on Vaughan’s article is a good way of summing things up:

The “concentration oasis” is a myth I don’t subscribe to. And yet it’s truly short-sighted to fail to consider the costs of cultivating a culture of distraction and inattention.

A culture of distraction and inattention can breed from multi-tasking if a kid is left to himself. I think there is value in multi-tasking but one must teach the kids how to multi-task in a sensible way. Why am I restricting myself to just kids, even adults can learn how to multi-task, right? May be not. It has been shown (Human multi-tasking research links) that after the early 20’s it’s very hard to change the networks that have been developed in the brain. But that does not mean that adults who multi-task cannot learn to do it in a better way.

Courting Controversy

The Court’s order on rotting foodgrains presents the latest in a series of instances when the Supreme Court has waded into raging contemporary controversies. While in this post I will not comment on this trend generally, intervention in this current instance when the Court ‘ordered’ that the government distribute foodgrains to the poor, is illegitimate, detrimental to the reputation of the Court and brings into question the competence of the Court in pronouncing on such questions.

Illegitimacy

First, the question of what should be done with the rotting foodgrains is clearly not a legal question. While the Court has read in a fundamental right to food in to the right to life under Article 21, this does not imply a right to the foodgrains rotting in FCI godowns. On the contrary, this expresses the constitutional mandate that there is an obligation on the state to ensure that no Indian citizen goes hungry. How the state chooses to fulfil this obligation is outside the remit of the courts. It is a policy question, since it has budgetary ramifications, decisions involving a number of ministries, and an issue of prioritisation of goals which the government, being the elected representatives of the people, can legitimately take a call on. The Court pronouncing on a policy question is contrary to a whole host of precedents of the Supreme Court itself, besides being clearly contrary to common sense.

This is however not to suggest that the Court should have no role to play in this matter at all. The Court is itself under a constitutional obligation to ensure that the other organs of government, i.e. the legislature and the executive fulfil their respective constitutional obligations. Since intuitively, rotting foodgrains could provide a channel to fulfil the government’s constitutional obligation with respect to the right to food, the Court certainly can legitimately ask the question as to why such steps to distribute these foodgrains are not being taken. However it cannot order such a move, as it had purported to do, since that would be tantamount to policy formulation itself, which would be illegitimate for the Court to do, being an unelected, unrepresentative and relatively unaccountable institution.

Lack of Competence

Second, the Court is incompetent to pass such an order. Contrary to the common perception prevalent in large sections of media coverage of this issue, distribution of rotting foodgrains is not an open-and-shut case. As the Prime Minister pointed out, this is a multi-faceted problem which involves providing the right incentives for farmers to produce. In addition, there are budgetary implications of distributing such foodgrains, the impact of such distribution on markets and the channels through which such distribution is to be effected. These are necessary questions which must be taken into account before any such policy measure is effectuated. The Court, being an adjudicatory institution, with neither information, nor expertise in food grain distribution is not competent to answer these questions in any satisfactory manner. In addition, there is the thorny principled question of who among the poor should be entitled to the rotting foodgrains? Should it be poor who live near the godowns? Or should it be the poorest of the poor? Or should it happen on a first-come-first-served basis? Isn’t there a question of justice involved regarding criteria by which people should be entitled to the food? I fail to see as to how the Court can pass a blanket order to distribute such foodgrains, saying it’s better that that they get distributed than they get wasted, without enumerating the principles on which such distribution is to take place. Ambiguity in this regard, is a pointer perhaps to the Court’s lack of information and expertise in this matter.

Detrimental to the Reputation of the Judiciary

This order, and other such similar orders, certainly have great symbolic value and earn the Court some popular brownie points. It expresses a public sentiment powerfully and the media hails the Court as a caring institution, responsive to the needs of the people. However in the long run, I believe, orders such as these, which the Court cannot legitimately and competently pronounce, and which will be observed by the government only in their breach, will be damaging to the reputation of the judiciary. This is because, given the nature of these orders, their speedy implementation will be excessively onerous. To ensure their implementation, the Court can either resign itself to the fact that the government will attempt in good faith to follow its directions, or adopt a course of supervisory jurisdiction by which it continues to monitor the enforcement of its orders. While the latter course is certainly an option, at a time when the Court exercises such jurisdiction in a number of matters- forest rights being the classic example, which has been litigated for 14 years before the Court, taking on an additional burden is a questionable strategy. Given its existing workload and backlog, fighting the government’s battle may not be worth the court’s while. If this is not done however, the orders may well not be complied with or result in compromises with the government as happened in this case. The Court then risks being transformed into an institution whose intervention is public controversies is well-meaning and sympathetic but ultimately fruitless. This, needless to say, will raise questions regarding the efficacy of the courts and the enforcement of its orders, an aspect which till today is largely taken for granted. The Prime Minister may in fact have done the Court a great service by checking the extent of its sympathy with the poor of this country.

So what happens to the foodgrains?

The Court, I believe must ensure that the government takes all necessary steps to fulfil its constitutional obligations which include being made to answer as to why it allowed the foodgrains to rot in the first place and why it cannot distribute the rotting foodgrains now. However, the exercise must be deliberative and involve the government having to state its reasons before the Court. It must not extend to forcing the government to take specific measures for the reasons outlined above. At the same time, the Prime Minister himself must not remain content with telling the Supreme Court not to dictate policy; he must ensure that his government autonomously does all it can to ensure foodgrains do not rot and storage capacities are adequate which is clearly something it has not done thus far. Only extreme insensitivity would not suggest this course of action in the future and extreme incompetence fail to ensure it.

The wastage of foodgrains is unfortunate. Equally, the Court’s sympathy with the poor is a sentiment which, as the Prime Minister said, deserves the highest respect.  But rectifying one wrong with another is rarely sagacious. Certainly not for the Supreme Court of India.

I always look forward to the latest that Indian advertising has to offer on all my visits back home.  I find the ad break to be miles ahead of the main programming content both in terms of entertainment value and information on the state of the nation. This time, apart from the usual slew of kids spouting the virtues of toothpaste and mutual funds alike, I saw a new story – of four young people, from four different small towns in India, migrating to small towns in other parts of the country.

While I cannot claim to speak for small cities and towns all over India, when I was growing up in Lucknow in the nineties, migration was definitely a one way street. The only ‘outsiders’ we knew were the few government officers who were posted here. Otherwise, it was a fairly unchanging, homogenous community.  My single-minded ambition, and that of most of my classmates from school, was to find our way out of the dead-end that Lucknow seemed to us.  This ambition pervaded almost all parts of the society – from the poorest labourer to the most prosperous businessman.  No one ever seemed to want to migrate to the city, and it is not difficult to imagine why – the stiflingly conservative and corrupt atmosphere really had nothing much to offer.

The much celebrated process of liberalization in India had started in the 90s, but change was still ten years away from Lucknow.  From 2002 onwards, each time I came back home from University on vacation, there was something new in the city – a mall, a multiplex, an international bank, a new car showroom. These appeared at the time to be very superficial changes, which altered little more than the city’s already tortured skyline.

The impact of these changes is easy to see now. While most middle class families still aspire to send their children to Delhi or to other metros after their schooling, the new jobs that have been created in the city are being filled by a workforce drawn from two channels: immigrants from outside the state, and local residents (particularly women) who were either earlier not a part of the workforce at all, or were employed as domestic help (more on this second category in a later post).

So far, the number of immigrants is still low enough to inspire only some curiosity, and large scale reactionary responses of the kind seen in Mumbai and Bangalore in recent times have not occurred. However, while these are early days yet, I believe that the nature of migration here is fundamentally different from that seen by larger and more prosperous urban centres in other parts of the country, and accordingly the experience with immigration is likely to be markedly different as well.  I have a few ideas on why this is likely:

Lack of a strong state identity in UP: The states that have seen the greatest opposition to immigration from other regions have had strong regional identities with linguistic and cultural pride as the cornerstone.  In Maharashtra for instance, the ‘Marathi Manoos’ has an overarching identity, that goes beyond the fault-lines of caste, sub-caste or dialect. In UP, on the other hand, identities are highly fractured. Identification on the basis of the membership of a gotra, sub-caste, caste or village is so strong, that there is no room for a state-wide identity. The ‘immigrant outsider’ is not seen to militate against a common identity in the same way as in Karnataka or Maharashtra.

Politics of cronyism: Following on from the point above, among the existing residents, power is derived from the membership of a caste or sub-caste, and links with other powerful members (politicians, policemen, high ranking civil servants) of the same sub-group. In a state known for its absence of good governance and law and order, social capital plays an extremely prominent role. Who you know is the primary determinant of what you can get done. The immigrant, who usually does not have these deep rooted links, is accordingly not viewed as a threat by the local community.

Immigrants viewed as apolitical and trustworthy: The other rather unusual factor that could come to the aid of the immigrant is the existence of the ‘positive stereotype’.  Existing side by side with ridicule for unfamiliar religious, cultural and linguistic traits, there is also a grudging respect and trust for the outsider. Put another way, distrust for the familiar is so great, that it becomes easy for the locals to repose trust in the immigrant. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a local businessman would feel much more at ease if his file goes to a Bengali or South Indian government officer than a local man. These positive stereotypes that have existed in the minds of the people for decades since independence are hard to dispel, and this could work in favour of greater acceptance for the immigrants.

Economic profile of immigrants: The last factor that makes the nature of immigration here different from that seen by other parts of the country is the economic profile of the immigrant. Migration from UP and Bihar to Maharashtra and Karnataka is often linked with poverty and distress of the migrants in their home state. The jobs taken up by these migrants are on the unskilled and poorly paid end of the spectrum, and the resentment from locals who also aspire to a share of this small and dear pie is high. In marked contrast, the inward immigration to UP has occurred mainly to fill a local skill-deficit, and immigrants have tended to occupy managerial posts in large companies and banks.

Enough print space has been taken up by the benefits of immigration in Indian and international journals, and I do not propose to revisit those arguments in this piece.  I am also acutely aware that it has been easy enough in the past to incite ill will towards a single minority group in the past and make them scapegoats for all real and perceived ills of the local community. This has been true of UP as of other places, and each of the factors that I have mentioned above may be quickly neutralized by a single wave of irrational hatred. Nevertheless, this scenario is not likely currently and I hope, as reverse migration into Lucknow and other urban centres in UP picks up pace, it remains free of such irrational hatred owing to UP’s perception of immigrants and their place in society.

                                                                                                                                                                                                               –           Quran 9:73

Thus goes a quotation employed by Arun Shourie to provoke a genre of controversy, that he (like many others) has tactfully turned into a subject matter of bestsellers.

Whatever one might have to say about that, Wikipedia estimates that the holy’ Bible and the ‘holy’ Quran have sold (or distributed) more copies than the publishing industry has otherwise been able to manage. Even today, the industry (besieged by more secular threats such as the Internet) is yet to overcome its success with the Bible and the Quran. It finds itself struggling with an abundance of writers who feel the queer need to impart sense, or convince, rather than preach.

But thanks to a majority of us yet being unable to read, write or comprehend these texts, the historical abundance of religious teaching and literature, has turned out to be a relatively an innocent manifestation. The archaic languages in which they are expressed further aid in our misunderstanding of what they contain and provide many of us a passable excuse to ignore what are evidently – bestsellers. Of course, we place them in high regard on our bookshelves, and I suggest we continue to do so, as it is intellectually fashionable.

As someone who conveniently calls himself a ‘Hindu’, I hold ancient Indian texts with the same high regard, and value my time delving into the absurdity of their translation, or comprehension. And as a so-called ‘English speaking, urban middle class Indian’ who will not spend his days worrying about anything that isn’t expressed in English and on paper, that is easily available or can be printed out, understood, underlined and made into paper planes, I don’t typically permit religion to distract from more pressing and immediate preoccupations. In the matter of course, some of us, like my good friend Subramanian has over here, do manage to fly into gardens of roses ostensibly planted by religion, and smell the flowers, letting their religious hues invigorate the religious senses, shutting out the science of the olfactory nerve, and perception of color, abandoning in a flight of romance, the absurdity of roses having anything to do with religion.

That is not to lightly dismiss Subramanian’s erudite illustrations, because the genesis of this piece lies not in what he says, but what they represent. They represent, what I think, is the most pressing dilemma facing religion today. It lies in our inability to rationalize where religion begins and ends. In each of Subramanian’s examples, I would beg to differ on where religion starts and stops, and where music, philosophy and grammar do.

While it may be an academic exercise to demarcate our secular and religious intellectual / academic traditions, and reevaluate such matters as works of art, cultural practices, ‘good and evil’ and the role of the church and state, we often forget that, outside of our intellectually fashionable bookshelves, religion may yet be a formidable force. We pay little attention to its material manifestations. For instance, its figure-heads, who control vast amounts of wealth, endowments, charities and educational institutions, and carry great influence. We pay little attention to the propriety of religion being dished out to children at an age when obeisance is most easily obtained and inculcated. We know little about what our politics means to those who occupy their minds with more religion than we do.

Having developed new ideas, and framed new principles in spheres that we previously left to the holy book and silent prayer, we may be conceding less today to religion than we did before. By scrutinizing and demarcating the role of religion in our lives – in politics, in institutions, culture and society, some of us may be finding it increasingly of little relevance. But, today more than ever before, political and cultural battles may at their very root, be a result of conflicting ideas of what religion does and does not represent,what it must and must not mean, most importantly, what it means in the first place.

Consider the words of this concerned father of a girl (who was a victim of an instance of ‘honour killing’ soon after) warning her against marrying out of caste -

“I would say that what you have done or going to do, is the opposite of Sanatan Dharma… The Indian Constitution says that adults can have their own marital bond but our Constitution is just 60 years. In contrast, our religion, no one knows how old our religion is”

Aghast at the prevalence of ‘honour killings’ on the basis of an ancient religion, (and maybe less aghast at the understandable disdain towards the more recent Constitution) the establishment in Delhi intends to pass laws to wipe the practice out, presumably having overcome its fear of alienating voters in the battle that may ensue with khap panchayats, the cultural / religious muttawwahs of our rural hinterland.

To say that religion is boring or useless is one thing, to say that it is irrelevant is another. Any political battle that religion will wage, will concern us all. And worse, like international terrorism, separatism, certain territorial conflicts and extremism, which are made out to belong to that category, we may struggle to ascertain whether it is religion that has anything to do with it. Like Richard Dawkins here, and in the Mahabharata, maybe – the genesis of Kunti’s offspring!

Like the contradictions inherent in Kunti’s attribution of Karna to Surya, it may be a little late in the day to explore modern secularism’s inherent contradictions, but we have ignored religion for too long, and risk repeating Kunti’s mistake of punishing a contradiction with abandonment! As Subramanian says, we may consider ourselves successful if we were to interest you in a discussion on religion and culture. If it would do the trick, a few sleepless nights too!